City Council & DPD vs. Houseboats (Radio show)

Tomorrow morning (8/25/13) bright and early (around 8:00-8:15 AM) Seattle City Council member Richard Conlin and Lake Union Liveaboard Association founder, Kevin Bagley will be hosted by Bob McLaughlin on KIRO Radio 97.3 On The Water (Tune in by clicking here). The topic is about Houseboats. Also please visit the On The Water Facebook Page and post your comments!

Recent proposals, approved by the City Council Planning, Land Use & Sustainability committee, chaired by Richard Conlin, will put many Seattle houseboats in serious jeopardy. These proposals will take the form of a Department of Planning and Development Director’s Rule, which has no clear means of appeal and which will retro-actively clarify the terms “Designed and Used for Navigation.”

The proposed clarification consists of a checklist of requirements that vessels would have to meet in order to be used as a liveaboard vessel. This checklist contains requirements that prior to July 22, 2013, were NEVER seen, published, have NEVER been required of ANY vessel, nor in any way have been made known to those that have lived on vessels for the last 23 years. Yet, in spite of this, somehow, through some clairvoyant process, these people will have been expected to have met these requirements.

The proposed requirements include:

Having a naval architect certify the floating structure designed to safely navigate in the type of waters in which it is moored considering the shape, material, size and stability of the structure and accepted naval architect industry standards?

Requiring a specific type of insurance (for cruising)

Requiring ALL vessels over 30 ft to have their engine attached at all times

Requiring vessels to navigate in the waters where they are moored

Requiring vessels to have a certain minimum horsepower engine

Requiring vessels to be at least twice as long as they are wide

Requiring vessel to have a certain amount of freeboard (distance from waterline to deck)

and more…

The only rules that apply to EXISTING houseboats as defined in the EXISTING Shoreline Master Plan (SMP) are:

23.60.090 F.Floating structures, including vessels which do not have a means of self-propulsion and steering equipment and which are designed or used as a place of residence, with the exception of house barges moored within The City of Seattle in June 1990 and licensed by The City of Seattle, shall be regulated as floating homes pursuant to this chapter. Locating other non-water-dependent uses over water on floating structures, including vessels, which do not have a means of self-propulsion or steering equipment is prohibited unless specifically permitted on house barges or historic ships by other sections of this chapter.

23.60.942 “Vessel” means ships, boats, barges, or any other floating craft which are designed and used for navigation and do not interfere with the normal public use of the water, including historic ships which do not have a means of self-propulsion and steering equipment.

These are the ONLY laws that regulate living aboard a vessel and these laws have been on the books since 1990. When this rule was adopted, about 64 houseboat style vessels were in existence and were known to the city. Of these, 30 did not have propulsion and were grandfathered in as “Housebarges”. The number of Housebarges later grew to 34. The remaining 30 Houseboat style vessels had propulsion and steering and were allowed to remain as live-aboard vessels. During the following 23 years, approximately 80 additional houseboats vessel, having steering and propulsion, were either built or were delivered on Seattle Waters. When DPD was consulted by builders about what they had to do to comply, they were turned away with the phrase “we don’t deal with vessels” so creators of these vessels were left to their best judgement as to how to meet the requirements.

To this day, there has been only one document published by the city to assist people with the requirements, and this was the Client Assistance Memo #229 initially created in 1993 and revised in 2004, this document indicates that Housebarges (Vessels lacking steering and propulsion) were “Designed and Used for Navigation by Towing” so it is very understandable that those building houseboat vessels with propulsion, steering and other additional marine equipment felt their vessels were even more Designed and Used for Navigation!

Under the new proposed rules, the following vessels would NOT qualify, yet obviously, to any lay person, a naval architect, or anybody that knows their stern from their bow, these ARE vessels and they are designed for navigation and are clearly being used for navigation. (Watch the videos by clicking on the links below)

Lake Union Liveaboard Association supports the On Water Residence Stakeholder Group (appointed by Richard Conlin) recommendations and believe the City Council should adopt this as criteria for existing vessels. The last minute changes by DPD dismissed the efforts of this group and laid down a path designed to eliminate Houseboats in Seattle. As DPD has gone through 6 iterations of “clarifications” it is painfully obvious that DPD does not know the meaning of Designed and Used for Navigation and should stop throwing mud against the wall and hoping it sticks. The Stakeholder Group recommendations were well thought out and carefully analyzed.

Do the right thing. Stop this retro-active nonsense, accept the Stakeholder recommendations, and make NEW CLEAR RULES going forward.

If you would like to help, please go to SaveOurHouseboats.com (New site – under construction)